Flexible MXene-based Janus porous fibrous membranes for sustainable solar-driven desalination and emulsions separation

Janus Carbon Nanotube@poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) Fabric for Stable and Efficient Solar-Driven Interfacial Evaporation

“…It was found that the four kinds of ion concentrations were significantly reduced and the ion concentrations of Na + , Mg 2+ , K + , and Ca 2+ were well below the World Health Organization (WHO) standard for drinking water, indicating that the freshwater condensed by the Janus CNT@PBAT fabric was clean and safe enough for human consumption. The above results indicated that the as-prepared 3D water channel evaporator shows outstanding and stable evaporation rates and salt resistance performance, which are comparable to or even higher than those of the previously reported superhydrophobic Janus solar evaporator, as summarized in Figure f and Table S1. ,,− ,− Moreover, the as-prepared 3D WCE equipped with the Janus fabric had a potentially low cost due to both the renewable and cost-effective cotton fiber and the facile process (shown in Table S2).…”

“…Under strong irradiation (>1 W m –2 ), thermal energy management and water transport are two key factors affecting the performance of solar-driven evaporators. , The slight decrease in energy efficiency may be caused by the fact that the higher photothermal conversion temperature leads to increased heat conduction loss, heat convection loss, and heat radiation loss . However, compared with other evaporators, ,, the decrease rate in the energy efficiency of our prepared evaporator was lower. Due to the low thermal conductivities of the PS foam and cotton, the heat was localized in the top layer where evaporation occurred, effectively avoiding conductive heat loss to the bulk water and maintaining relatively high efficiency under strong irradiation.…”

“…However, these strategies would decrease the productivity of freshwater and increase costs. Salt blockages can be suppressed using Janus structures with superhydrophobic layers on top and hydrophilic layers on bottom. − This structure combined the merits of the fast saline ion diffusion property of the hydrophilic layer and the salt resistance of the superhydrophobic layer. Zhang reported an efficient salt-rejecting Janus evaporator by taking advantage of the surface hydrophobicity of poly­(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS).…”

A bioinspired antibacterial and photothermal membrane for stable and durable clean water remediation

“…As illustrated in Fig. 4i, the evaporation rate of the PDA-1@CA membranes was higher than that of many different types of evaporators previously reported, [48][49][50] including MXene-based, [51][52][53][54] Ag-based, [55][56][57] PPybased evaporators. 20,58 Although some other devices exhibited high evaporation rates, their fabrication processes were usually complicated, or they exhibited an inability to suppress the colonization of bacteria for durable applications in microorganismcontaminated water.…”

Membranes in Solar‐Driven Evaporation: Design Principles and Applications

“…For example, PVDF served as an additive to attach photothermal nanoparticles onto a PVDF membrane. [73] PDMS was also used to immobilize photothermal materials, such as CNTs and MXene, onto substrates, [74] sometimes with PVDF. [75,76] Beyond these hydrophobic polymers, hydrophilic materials such as PVA were also applied to promote the dispersion and stable adhesion of photothermal materials on membranes.…”